Healing and Restoration from Jeremiah 32
Thomas Durst has a nice, short, devotional post drawn from Jeremiah 32:36-44, which he quotes from The Message. It’s titled Healing and Restoration.
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Testimony – John 4:39-42
There’s a short sequence of thoughts here at the end of the story of the Samaritan woman (Woman at the Well) that makes an important point about testimony. Many Christians are hesitant to share their testimony. One of the reasons is that they’re afraid they don’t know enough. But you don’t have to know very…
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10 Psalms Not Heard (much) in Modern Worship
Don has a post titles 10 Tough Psalms for Worship Songs that deserves some serious thinking. I relate it to my recent post Psalm 95 and 81: Interrupting Praise with Prophecy?. Do we tend to censor the more challenging material in our worship?
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Tension Between Tradition and Innovation in John 4
I have used John 4 in many ways, especially in discussing various methods of teaching. But something struck me more forcefully this morning than it has before–the tension between tradition and innovation. It is not that Jesus denies all tradition and favors innovation, which one could conclude based on the living water vs. well water…
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Psalm 95 and 81: Interrupting Praise with Prophecy?
A few days ago I blogged about Psalm 95 and how I felt that Matthew Henry had missed the emphasis. I’ve mentioned before that my current devotional exercise is to read the lectionary texts for coming Sundays starting two weeks ahead until the Sunday in question. Thus I’m continually reading two sets of lectionary texts….
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Need for Moderate/Liberal Hermeneutics
It is sometimes difficult to discuss scriptural issues involved in many modern debates simply because there is so little explicit liberal hermeneutic. It’s not that there is no liberal hermeneutic; it’s simply that so few people are aware of such a thing, and it’s so badly communicated to people in the pews. Moderates have succeeded…
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The Value of REB Eccentricity
Or perhaps I should say REB uniqueness. One of the major reasons for using multiple Bible versions when studying the Bible in English (or any other language other than the originals) is to make yourself aware of alternate translations for particular passages. This goes beyond different ways of expressing the thought in English, to places…
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A Desire to Please and a Fear to Offend – Psalm 95
Matthew Henry, in commenting on Psalm 95 says that “[t]his psalm must be sung with a holy reverence of God’s majesty and a dread of his justice, with a desire to please him and a fear to offend him.” I’m wondering just how that was derived from this Psalm. I don’t doubt that there we…
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Exodus 17:1-7 – In and Out of Trouble
I provide some devotional thoughts (not particularly exegetical!) that I gleaned from this passage in my post today for my wife’s devotional list.
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Not Through the Law: Romans 4:13
One of the major elements of the new perspectives on Paul is the changing view of justification. In a broad sense, one could say that justification involves not a moment of personal salvation, but rather a moment of incorporation into a broad community, known as the people of God, kingdom of God, or the body…